


it gets better

by daisysusan



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Comfort, Cuddling & Snuggling, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-06
Updated: 2012-10-06
Packaged: 2017-11-15 17:55:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/530043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisysusan/pseuds/daisysusan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Liam needs a cuddle, even if he doesn't realize it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it gets better

**Author's Note:**

> Because seriously, guys, Liam has looked like the saddest puppy for the last two weeks and it's instrumental to my psychological well-being that I imagine he's getting cuddled a lot. The title is a reference to the fun. song [It Gets Better](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiW_03TAS6w), which I wouldn't mention except the phrase has other associations, so. 
> 
> For the cottoncandy_bingo prompt "hogging the blankets."

Liam wakes up to a sharp rapping coming from—somewhere, and screws up his face, trying to remember where he is and what’s the causing the noise. One of his arms is hanging in midair; when he moves it, it goes a bit tingly like it’s been still too long, and then his hand drags across the carpet. 

Right, he fell asleep on the sofa. 

That’s been happening kind of a lot, since—since recently. It’s weird, sleeping in a huge bed all by himself—and it shouldn’t be, he has his own bed whenever they stay in hotels, and it’s not like he was never alone at his flat—but the fact remains that he’s been restless and sleeping poorly. As a result, he keeps falling asleep in strange places—on the sofa, flopped onto any available shoulder between interviews on press days, once nearly at a club. 

Frowning, Liam remembers that someone is knocking at his door. 

That’s even stranger than being asleep on the sofa. He doesn’t think anyone’s ever knocked as his door without his knowing they were coming; the only people who show up uninvited all have keys anyway. 

“Who’s it?” Liam calls, the words slurred with sleep. He’s not quite willing to stand up yet.

“Me!” comes the response and Liam’s completely befuddled. Harry is knocking—Harry, who definitely has a key, because he’s never once hesitated to use it to show up at Liam’s at all hours. 

“Come in,” Liam says. Harry does, of course, smiling a bit when he walks through the door, but his face twists as he sees Liam. 

“You all right, mate?” he says, and then his mouth turns up wryly. “Right. D’you want some tea?”

Liam’s still half-asleep, at least, and hasn’t quite managed to process that Harry’s standing in his flat in the first place, but he finds himself nodding dumbly and dragging himself into a passable approximation of a sitting position. He doesn’t much feel like standing up to go help out in the kitchen, because he’s tired and stuff. Lack of sleep. 

He rubs both hands across his face. By the time Harry comes back with two mugs of tea, pressing one of them into Liam’s waiting hands, Liam feels almost awake enough to carry on a conversation. 

Harry doesn’t say anything, though. He sips at his tea, letting his knee knock against Liam’s occasionally, and they drink in silence. It’s surprisingly nice, just having someone else in the room to share tea and comfortable silence with. 

“Er,” Liam says finally. “I don’t want you getting the wrong idea from this, but why are you here?”

“Can’t I visit a mate?” Harry asks, his voice casual, but his face is unreadable. After a long moment, he continues. “Well, I volunteered. We’re worried about you, see. And I’ve—well, it wasn’t the same, not even a little bit, but I’ve sort of been there.”

_Oh,_ Liam thinks with sudden clarity. Harry, because Harry’s had a relationship fall apart because they’re too famous, because he’s the only one who’s had to look someone in the eye—been looked in the eye—and told them that being together wasn’t worth the things they were putting up with. 

“We’re all worried and, well, I said I’d come by and see if you were interested in some company to distract you from being in an empty flat and all.” Harry’s smiling now, a bit weakly, but he’s clearly trying to be comforting and Liam can’t help himself sliding a bit closer on the sofa. 

“That sounds nice,” he says, and is a little surprised when he means it as well. Getting up and dressed and going out has seemed like entirely too much work all week, but if it’s just the other lads, he can sit on the sofa and drink tea and not have to worry about anything except maybe Louis spilling things on the carpet. 

Harry slips one arm around Liam’s shoulders, running light fingernails across Liam’s shoulder, and types out a text with his other hand. Liam feels himself swaying slightly, and he gives in, letting his head drop onto Harry’s shoulder. 

“Thanks,” he says weakly. 

They’re sitting just like that, Harry’s fingers moving slowly across Liam’s skin, when there’s another knock at the door a few minutes later. This time, Harry’s the one who beckons, and Liam expects it when Louis and Niall and Zayn tumble through the door, looking oddly subdued. 

“Hi,” he says, forcing a smile.

“You look rubbish,” Louis says, always tactful. 

“I feel rubbish,” Liam answers, the words escaping him before he’s analyzed them at all. He’s too tired to apologize for the complaint, though. 

Louis drops onto the sofa on his other side, wrapping an arm around Liam’s waist and curling in so his head rests on Liam’s shoulder. Liam feels all wrapped up in affection, curled between him and Harry, and for reasons he doesn’t understand in the slightest, it has him swallowing back tears. Niall squeezes in on Harry’s face side, tucking himself under Harry’s chin, and Zayn settles on the floor between Liam’s knees. 

“Anything you’d like to do?” Louis asks, his voice slightly muffed by Liam’s shoulder. Liam shrugs noncommittally. “How about some FIFA, then?” Louis says. 

“Sounds good,” Liam says, reaching for enthusiasm but ending up somewhere closer to resignation. “Whatever you like, I don’t much feel like doing anything.”

He ends up getting drawn into the game despite himself; he’s three cups of tea in, because Harry just appears with a new cup every time Liam finishes his, and it’s impossible not to laugh at the way Louis and Niall are throwing insults back and forth. Neither of them is playing particularly well, but they’re enthusiastic, and it’s as good a distraction as anything, especially with Harry’s muttered commentary about everything they’re doing wrong. 

Nearly against his will, Liam finds himself smiling. It feels a bit odd, which doesn’t say anything good about his past few days, but at least he’s not just moping on the sofa. That’s progress, yeah?

Despite the noise—Zayn’s got involved with the yelling of insults, for no apparent reason—Liam’s eyes are drifting shut. He’s tucked up against Harry, warm and comfortable, and Harry’s stroking the side of his neck, fingers occasionally drifting up to toy with Liam’s earlobe. It’s soothing, and Liam’s exhausted, and every minute makes it harder to stay awake. 

And then he’s not sure what’s happening, eyes half-open and feet dragging across the floor. It makes sense when he feels his knees bump into his bed—Harry and Louis are hauling him to bed because he fell asleep on the sofa again. At least he won’t be sleeping there all night tonight. 

Face half buried in his pillows, Liam can feel someone undoing his jeans and stripping them off, and he’s sleepily grateful but also—“Don’t leave,” he says, not really to anyone in particular. 

The best thing about that is that no one questions, no one makes him repeat himself. Liam’s glad; he’s not sure he could do it, in part because he’s not sure he can make his mouth open again. There’s a bit of noisy shuffling about he can’t see, and a whispered conversation about the duvet—“Just get the extra blanket from the cupboard,” Zayn says—and then Liam feels the bed dip as someone crawls next to him. 

It’s Zayn, he can tell by the cologne and the way his face presses into Liam’s neck. Liam’s not sure where Harry and Niall have arranged themselves, but the last thing he remembers is Louis spreading the blanket over all of them and then crawling under it, wrapping an arm tight around Liam’s waist and dropping a barely-there kiss on the back of his neck. 

Liam wakes up too hot on one side and too cold on the other. He’s rolled over so that his face is smashed into Louis’s chest and he can barely breathe, but his shirt has ridden up and his back is prickling in the cool air. He doesn’t think anyone else is awake—Louis’s breathing is slow and steady, ruffling Liam’s hair slightly. 

The cold is uncomfortable—the warmth of Louis up against him is too, but it’s the comforting kind of uncomfortable—but Liam isn’t sure he’s willing to actually move in order to do something about it. Vaguely, he remembers having a blanket thrown across him as he passed out, but that must be gone now. Somehow. 

Twisting as much as he can without actually pulling free of the arm Louis’s got wrapped around him, Liam squints over his shoulder. There’s a bit of light seeping into the room around the blinds; it must be early morning now. The blanket that Louis draped across all five of them is completely tangled around Harry and Zayn, who are wrapped around each other in a mess of limbs and hair. Somehow, he’s not at all surprised they’ve stolen all the warmth for themselves. Harry’s snoring, the sound mostly muffled by Zayn’s shoulder and the masses of blanket draped around him, and it’s nearly as comforting as Louis’s arm tight across his waist. 

They don’t do this much, but it’s not the first time it’s happened either. Harry’s snoring is familiar from what feels like a thousand nights spent in tiny spaces all together, and sometimes after especially intense shows they end up piled in one bed together, too strung out and emotionally drained to try and drag themselves to their own rooms. Liam isn’t even awake enough to remember the first time it happened, thinks sleepily that they probably piled together on the floor of their room at the X Factor at least once. 

This is the first time it’s happened in one of their houses, but that matters less than the fact that he’s still sleepy right now. He’s not been properly sleepy all week, just dragging himself to bed when he knows he ought to and then lying awake for hours on end. But now, too hot and too cold at the same time, with Harry snoring and Niall snuffling loudly, Liam wants nothing more than to press his face back into Louis’s shoulder and go back to sleep. 

He tugs on the edge of the blanket, thinking he might be able to free just enough to cover himself back up, but Zayn and Harry both clutch at it tighter in their sleep. If it weren’t for how Liam’s arse is cold, he’d think it was adorable, both of them mumbling in their sleep and grabbing for the blanket like the greedy bastards they are. 

“Hey,” he hears whispered in his ear. “You awake?” It’s Louis, speaking so low Liam can barely make out the words. His hand is moving, brushing lightly across Liam’s hipbone. 

“Yeah,” Liam says, just as quiet. 

“Are you going to be all right?” Louis asks, so much more straightforward than Liam ever expected him to be. 

Liam glances over his shoulder at Zayn and Harry and Niall, and then turns back to meet Louis’s eyes. They’re so close trying to look makes his eyes cross, so he scrunches back down the bed to tuck his head under Louis’s chin.

“Yes,” he says, and even though the word is probably lost, Louis’s arm tightens like he’s heard. 

The last things Liam remembers before he falls back asleep are Louis whispering “We’ll stay as long as you need us to,” and kissing the top of his head.


End file.
